LIBRARY OF CONGRESS,
ctpit ; Cmm¥ la-..
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
MY PARISH NOTE-BOOK
COMPILED BY THE
Rev. WM. JAMES MILLER, A.M.
Published by THOMAS WHITTAKER, New York.
MY PARISH NOTE-BOOK
BY THE y<
Rev. WM. JAMES MILLER, A.M.
RECTOR OF ST. LUKE'S CHURCH, HOT SPRINGS, ARK.
i When found, make a note of"
DOMBEY AND SON
New York
THOMAS WHITTAKER
2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE
Tbb Library
op congress
washington
Copyright, 1894,
By THOMAS WHITTAKER.
LC Control Number
j oc rm484
PREFATORY NOTE.
In an experience of nearly twenty years as edi-
tor of a Church paper the compiler of this little
volume had ample opportunity to learn the mind
of the working Church as reflected in the exchanges
received from various parishes and dioceses. In
these exchanges he found so many articles that
threw light on questions of the day, that illustrated
the history, usage, and traditions of the Church,
that were suggestive in its practical work and help-
ful in bringing out the great value of the Sacra-
ments, the Prayer-book, and the Christian year,
he often wished he might see them in a more per-
manent form.
Having saved many of these articles for his own
use and reference, he now brings them together
and issues them as a handbook of information
under the title " My Parish Note-Book." He
has carefully classified them under six heads for
the greater convenience of the reader. The aim
has been to select short, pointed articles that may
be quickly read and yet be productive of thought.
He trusts that in this form these gleanings from
iii
iv
PREFATORY NOTE.
many sources may be helpful and suggestive to the
clergy in their work and to those desiring to know-
more perfectly this " way of life." The compiler
believes that there is embodied in these pages the
living voice of the living Church as it works, prays,
and prophesies amid the needs and spiritual long-
ings of the present generation.
W. J. M.
Hot Springs, Ark.,
Epiphany, 1.894.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
The Church
CHAPTER II.
The Sacraments
CHAPTER III.
The Prayer-book
CHAPTER IV.
The Christian Year
CHAPTER V.
The Parish — Its Life and Work.
CHAPTER VI.
Christian Giving
THE VALUE OF READING.
"In spite of o?ninous portents of unbelief the
awakening of Church life, which is manifest beyond
all questio7t throughout Great Britain and some
parts of this county, taking many forms, is felt
here. Two signs of it are evident. Among church
people, clergy and laity, I see a livelier sense of
what the Church is, as a conscious interest in their
thoughts and habits, and a more vivid idea of what
can be done for it and done by it. Of coiwse this
depends chiefly on the personal force of leaders,
and these are commonly 9 though not invariably, the
parish clergy. It is due, also, to a CIRCULATION
OF INTELLIGENCE as to what is actually going on,
%vhat is contrived, undertaken, builded, organized,
given, bequeathed in parishes, dioceses, mission-
fields, on every side. Pro?note this suggestive and
exemplary reading in every way you can." — BISHOP
Huntington's Annual Address, 1887.
CHAPTER I.
THE CHURCH.
An organization has existed in the world for
over eighteen centuries called the Christian Church.
To this Church was given the Bible, the Sacra-
ments, the Ministry, and the Creeds. These things
are the property of the organization to which they
were given. That organization has the sole right
to interpret that Bible, administer those Sacra-
ments, perpetuate that Ministry — the same right
that the United States Government has to inter-
pret its own laws, preserve its own rights, perpetu-
ate its own organization.
The Church's Birthday.
The Christian Church was supernaturally begun
in the upper chamber at Jerusalem on the day of
Pentecost. The Lord had prepared it a body, in
the one hundred and twenty who were gathered
together there awaiting the fulfillment of Christ's
promise of the Comforter. And as the Holy Spirit
breathed into Adam's body the breath of life and
2
THE CHURCH.
he became a living soul, so the same Holy Spirit
came with a sound as of a rushing mighty wind,
and filled all the house where they were sittings
and tongues of flame lighted upon each of them
who sat there, and they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost ; and the Church — the company of
believers called by Christ, and indwelt by the
Holy Spirit, the " one Body and one Spirit " — be-
gan its life, against which the gates of hell should
not prevail.
The Meaning of the Word "Church."
It ought to be known universally among Chris-
tians that the word the Holy Scripture uses for
church is ecclesia, from verb ekkaleo, to call out.
An ecclesia is a body called out. Its use came orig-
inally from the calling out of Israel from Egypt —
" out of Egypt have I called my son." This is the
first use of the word ecclesia.
The root idea, then, of the Church is a body
called out from the world, separated from it, and
set apart to the service of God.
The idea, therefore, of modern rationalists that
the Church and all mankind are synonymous terms
— in other words, that all mankind are in the
Church by their birth, and that baptism is only
to declare that fact — is opposed to the very root
meaning of the word. The Church is not the hu-
THE CHURCH.
3
man family, but a body called out from the human
family and consecrated to God's service. — The
Church Chronicle.
Who Compose the Church.
The Church of Christ comprehends all properly
baptized people. There is no way for baptized
people to join the Church, because they already
belong to it whether they recognize their privilege
or not. If they recognize their privilege, they will
be found in their place at the parish church doing
all they can to support and carry on its work ; they
will be confirmed when the bishop comes again, and
draw near with the faithful to partake of the Holy
Eucharist.
What the Church is.
The Church is the sphere in which God has
willed to work upon souls ; the Church is the
sphere in which God has guaranteed to save souls ;
the Church is the sphere in which God makes good
His promise.
It is true that God's grace overflows the Church.
" In every nation he that feareth Him, and work-
eth righteousness, is accepted with Him " (Acts
x. 35) : yet the fact remains that His grace is
pledged to us only within the circle of the Holy
Catholic Church. God's grace is not bound, but
we are bound to seek it where He has promised
4
THE CHURCH.
it — that is, in the Church. There is no guarantee,
no covenanted security, outside the Church. The
Church is the circle wherein God chiefly works ;
to be outside the Church is to be outside that
circle. — The Young Churchman,
The Church's Idea.
The admission of the imperfect and the imma-
ture, for the purposes of training and building up.
The Church is not a select and exclusive circle
of Heaven's favorites, but a broad and inclusive
net for sweeping in all of every kind. It is not a
pleasing dream of a sort of a little heaven for mu-
tual participation of spiritual pleasures, but rather,
the nobler conception of a vast and perilous field,
where the tares are mingled with the wheat, where
Christ's husbandry, Christ's building has to be
done — and where risks are to be run, dangers
courted, spiritual lepers taken in to tend and nurse,
ignorance beckoned that it may be taught, weak-
ness encouraged that it may be strengthened, child-
hood smiled upon and warmly welcomed that it
may be educated, guarded, matured, and rendered
back at last to Christ— the Good, the Loving, the
Friend of publicans and sinners, who pleased not
Himself, and gave us an Example, that we should
become " fellow- workers with Him."
THE CHURCH.
5
For what the Church Exists.
The Church exists in the world not to enjoy
our patronage, to invite our criticism, to gratify
our taste, but to accept our discipleship. Her or-
ganized life, the due succession of her ministry, the
due administration of her sacraments, the stated
order of her worship, the ceaseless proclamation
of her Lord's message — all these things are not
less important, less essential to-day than when in
the beginning Peter convened the hundred and
twenty disciples to choose the Apostle Matthias. —
Bishop H. C. Potter, D.D.
Historic Christianity.
In all departments of religious life and thought,
it is the historic character of Christianity and of
the Church which is commending itself to men's
acceptance. In the historic Christianity there is
liberty and strength. In the historic Church there
is conservatism and an illimitable faculty of prog-
ress. Any man who would do great and perma-
nent service to the Church in these times must be
possessed of the historical idea.
The True Church.
No man can make a new church any more than
lie can make a new Bible. The old Church was
6
THE CHURCH.
founded by Christ Himself. It was complete at
the start. It possessed all the means of grace.
It taught all the necessary truth. It was meant
to remain unchanged until Christ should come
again at the last day. The faith was once for all
delivered to the saints, and was not to be added
to or diminished. The Church was built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets. Mod-
ern religious bodies, or so-called Churches, are, in
reality, only religious societies. They are new,,
not ancient. They are man-made ; none of them
date from Pentecost. — The Platte Missionary.
The Episcopal Church.
The Episcopal Church exists in America as
Catholic (not Roman) and Apostolic. While com-
monly called " Protestant Episcopal," it is never-
theless, as history shows, the Catholic Church of
the Creed.
HER FOUNDATIONS.
Christ came to this earth to found a Kingdom
or Church, and He promised that the gates of
hell should never prevail against this organization,
which is called His Body and His Bride.
HER HISTORY.
The Church was founded in Jerusalem, a.d. 30,
by Jesus Christ ; was planted in England about
THE CHURCH.
7
a.d. 66, by St. Paul or one of his pupils ; was sub-
ject to the usurpations of the Bishop of Rome
from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, then
thoroughly freed and reformed ; was a mission of
the Church of England in America until after the
Revolution, when it became independent and was
called Protestant Episcopal. Thus it possesses
authority from Christ Himself, and has continuous
existence from the days of the Apostles.
HER MINISTRY.
In conformity with the uninterrupted usage of
the Church of Christ for eighteen hundred years
and the usage of nine tenths of the Christian world
at the present time, her ministry is threefold, viz. :
Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.
THE ESSENTIALS,
or basis of organic unity with the denominations,
as set forth by the bishops of England and Amer-
ica, are :
1. The open Bible.
2. The Apostles' and Nicene Creeds.
3. The Two Sacraments.
4. The Historic Episcopate.
HER HERITAGE.
1. The Scriptures.
2. The Book of Common Prayer.
8
THE CHURCH.
3. The Sacraments.
4. The Apostolic Ministry or Fellowship.
THE BASIS.
Of Doctrine : The Creed.
Of Devotion : The Lord's Prayer.
Of Obedience : The Ten Commandments.
THE MOTTO FOR CHURCH REUNION.
In Essentials : Unity.
In Non-Essentials : Liberty.
In all Things : Charity.
The Church's Possessions.
The Church offers a common ground of fellow-
ship to all who " love our Lord Jesus Christ in
sincerity." She rests her claim to this ministry of
reconciliation upon the following possessions :
I. The historical fact that she is the Mother
Church of the English-speaking race.
II. Gospel teaching, embodied in a Creed of
Apostolic origin, so simple that a child can learn
it, so definite that unbelief cannot overthrow it, so
comprehensive that nothing essential to the soul's
health is left unsaid.
III. A reverent and solemn Worship, free from
crudities of thought and expression, enriched by
the devotional experience of the past, and suited
to the daily wants of the present ; most truly a
THE CHURCH. 9
" Common Prayer," since it belongs to minister
and people alike, and allows the living voice of
the congregation to be heard.
IV. A Christian Nurture that cares tenderly for
the lambs of the flock ; teaches them from the first
that as baptized children they belong in the Good
Shepherd's fold ; brings them up to the love and
reverence of what is holy, pure, and honorable ;
and aims to make them God-fearing and high-
minded men and women.
V. A Christian Year to hallow and bless the
passing seasons by associating them with the events
of our Saviour's life on earth, and with the great
facts of Redemption. This quickens the memory ;
satisfies the instinctive desire of believers for spe-
cial seasons of devotion ; gives balance and sym-
metry to the thoughts; and is a guard against
narrow and one-sided views of revealed truth.
VI. Simple and Scriptural terms of admission.
The practical recognition of the duty of every
man, woman, and child baptized into the Body
of Christ to lend a helping hand in the work of
building up His Kingdom. — Trinity Parish Reg-
ister *, Fayetteville, Central New York.
Status of the Episcopal Church.
We often hear people remark that the Episcopal
Church is one of the "smaller sects." We have
I □
THE CHURCH.
already shown that she is not a sect, and if she
were, statistics show abundantly that she is not a
ft smaller " one. The English-speaking religious
communities of the world stand as follows : Episco-
pal, 25,000,000 ; Methodist, all kinds, 17,000,000 ;
Roman Catholics, 15,500,000; Presbyterians, all
kinds, 11,400,000 ; Baptists, all kinds, 8,900,000 ;
Congregationalists, 5,650,000.
The names of the founders and date of organi-
zation of the above Protestant societies are as fol-
lows, in the order of their inception :
Presbyterian, by John Knox a.d. 1520-60.
Congregationalism by Robert Brown. . a.d. 1583.
Baptist, by Roger Williams a.d. 1639.
Methodist, by John Wesley a.d. 1784.
These figures and facts are given not for the
purpose of criticising our brothers of these socie-
ties — for under God's providence they have all
done a great good, which otherwise would not
have been done, " for he that is not against us is
for us " — but they are given to show the members
of the Church how rich a legacy is theirs and how
appreciative all ought to be, and thankful that
they are members of the Holy Catholic and Apos-
tolic body of Christ ; how all ought to take courage
and life, and do valiant service for the Church. —
Ascension Church Life.
THE CHURCH.
I I
The Anglican Communion.
The Anglican Communion embraces all Chris-
tians in full communion with the Church of Eng-
land, viz. :
The Church of England, with its 52 bishops and
30,000 clergymen.
The Church of England in Ireland, with its 13
bishops and 2000 clergymen.
The Episcopal Church of Scotland, with its 7
bishops and 366 clergymen.
The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United
States, with its 78 bishops and 5000 clergymen.
The Church of England in Canada, Newfound-
land, and West Indies, etc., with its 29 bishops and
1500 clergymen.
The Church of England in Asia, with its 14
bishops and 813 clergymen.
The Church of England in Africa, with its 16
bishops and 400 clergymen.
The Church of England in Australia, with its
21 bishops and 300 clergymen.
Scattered, 9 bishops and 200 clergymen.
Bishops resigned, 30.
Say in round numbers, 259 bishops and 40,000
clergymen.
These different branches of the Anglican Com-
munion are entirely agreed on the three essential
I 2
THE CHURCH.
points : the Faith, the Administration of the Sac-
raments, and the three Orders of the Ministry. —
The Gospel Messenger.
Henry the Eighth.
Those persons who say that the Church of Eng-
land originated with Henry VIII. are so ignorant
of the commonest facts of English history that
their opinions are not worthy even of contempt.
The " Magna Charta " is the one document above
all others in English history with which any scholar
might be supposed to be acquainted. Among its
opening words are these : "The Church of England
shall be free and her liberties unimpaired " (in Lat-
in). We here see " The Church of England " re-
ferred to in a state document nearly two hundred
years before Henry VIII. was bom.— Church
Bells.
Rev. J. H. Herron notes that " a nine hundred
and ninety-nine years' lease of some property made
by the Church of England to the crown recently
reverted, by process of law, to its original owner,"
and pertinently asks, If the Church of England
was founded by Henry VIII., how could she
" make a lease six hundred years before she had
an existence " ?
THE CHURCH.
] 3
Why We Call Ourselves " Churchmen. "
Our Lord Jesus Christ did not when incarnate
on the earth commit His teachings and embody
His life-work in a book. He founded a society
— a Church. The New Testament, written years
after this Church was founded, and had been
spread over much of the then accessible world, re-
veals to us its writers' record of the setting up of
the kingdom of heaven on earth — the institution
of the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ — and
gives us notices of its history in the years of its
first introduction. It does not lay down rules for
the organization of the Church, but it proceeds on
the supposition that the Church had existed from
the start of Christianity, and still existed as Christ
established it, and will exist to the end of the world
agreeably to Christ's promise which it records.
That Church, we believe, has existed from the
Apostles' time with its Historic Episcopate, with its
threefold ministry, with its Apostolic Succession —
"one Holy Catholic Church." We profess our
belief in that Church in the Creed. We recognize
that Church as existing throughout Christendom.
We claim to trace the spiritual lineage of our bish-
ops and chief pastors through the Christian ages
and direct to the Apostles of our Lord, and through
them to the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls
14
THE CHURCH.
Himself. Such is the Church idea. Accepting
these postulates, we claim, and profess to be,
Churchmen.
Preference vs. Principle.
To the Editor of "The Living Church "/
The declaration made by Dr. Shields, of Prince-
ton, and quoted in The Living Church of Decem-
ber 9th, that " Protestantism must concede the
essential relation of the Historic Episcopate to
unity, if unity was to come at all," reminded me
of a little story, and a true one :
A friend of mine, a churchwoman, married a
Presbyterian. Meeting her a year or so later, I
ventured to inquire : "How about church attend-
ance? You go with your husband, I presume? "
" Oh no, he goes with me," was her reply. " His
Church, he said, was the Church of his choice.
But mine, said I, of my principle. ' Preference
must yield to principle,' said my good man ; and
he always goes to church with me."
The story has often recurred to me when I have
seen how sturdy a fight is made by sectarians for
things which they at the same time glory in pro-
claiming are non-essential — matters to be decided
by the choice of the individual. Why not let
"preference yield to principle " when the unity of
Christendom is concerned ?
Y. Y. K.
THE CHURCH.
s 5
Episcopacy.
(i No Church without a Bishop " has been a fact
as well as a maxim since the time of Tertuliian
and Irenseus ; after we have passed over the diffi-
culties of the first century, we find the Episcopal
government universally established, till it was in-
terrupted by the republican genius of the Swiss
and German reformers. — Gibbon.
It is a well-known fact of history that when
Luther and his adherents left the Church they lost
the Episcopate, because the bishops refused to
visit their churches and ordain priests for them.
The Rev. Dr. Kohler, of Pennsylvania, has written
a pamphlet of sixty pages entitled, " The Episco-
pate for the Lutheran Churches," in which he ex-
amines the testimony of Scriptures and the history
of the Church from Apostolic times, and concludes
that there have always been three offices in the
Church, bishops, priests, and deacons, that the
original constitution of the Church, as presented
in the Scriptures, is the Episcopal and not Presby-
terian.
Dr. Kohler's summary of the historic facts is
well and briefly put. It is that " the Apostles em-
bodied the Episcopal element into the constitution of
the Church, and from their days to the time of the
i6
THE CHURCH.
Reformation, or for fifteen hundred years, there was
no other form of Church government anywhere to
be found. Wheresoever there ivere Christians, there-
were also bishops ; and often where Christians dif-
fered in other points of doctiine or custom, and made
schisms and divisions in the Church, yet did they
all remai?i unanimous in this, in retaining bishops. 11
Apostolic Succession.
A bishop's genealogy is not asked for at every
turn. It need not be. The fact that he is pub-
licly, notoriously known to be a bishop, and taken
and acknowledged as such, in a Church which
holds Apostolic Succession essential to his being a
bishop at all, is evidently overwhelming testimony
that his descent is legitimate, and that all canoni-
cal and orderly things were done in his case.
That the judge is on the bench, trying cases,
accepted and received as a judge, is all the evi-
dence you ask of his legal commission. He could
not be there at all unless all things lawful existed
in his appointment.
And so it always was. It is merely trifling with
words if a man knows, and evidence of incompe-
tency to express an opinion if he does not know,
to say, " You cannot prove that from any modern
bishop ; up to the Apostles there is a continuous
succession of ordainers." You might as well tell
THE CHURCH.
me I cannot prove that the oak tree on the lawn
has an unbroken descent from some oak of two
thousand years ago!
I do not need to prove a self-evident fact in
nature, or a self-evident fact in organic society.
The oak of to-day proves the oak of twenty cent-
uries ago. The bishop of to-day proves the bish-
op of eighteen centuries ago.
They knew oaks then from bramble bushes as
well as we do. They knew bishops just as well
as we do, perhaps better, and they knew, too, that
bishops came from bishops as oaks come from
oaks. There is no other way known to man to
get either oaks or bishops. The ground has been
gone over so many times, and so carefully and ex-
haustively, and by such thorough scholarship, that
one may rest in peace. — From the sermon preached
at the Consecration of the Rt. Rev. Davis Sessums,
by the Bishop of Mississippi.
Origin of Methodist Bishops.
Mr. Wesley, when he was eighty years of age,
in a private chamber of a public house in Bristol,
England, was induced to lay his hands upon the
head of the Rev. Dr. Coke, a Presbyter of the
Church of England, appointing him as a super-
intendent over the missionary operations of the
Methodists in America. On Dr. Coke's arrival
i8
THE CHURCH.
in this country, he proceeded to lay his hands on
the head of a Mr. Asbury, a layman, and thereby
ordained him to the same office of superintendent.
These two men soon began to call themselves
bishops. When Mr. Wesley heard of this, he im-
mediately rebuked their arrogation of an office and
title which he never pretended to have conveyed.
In a letter to Mr. Asbury he says : <l How can you,
how dare you suffer yourself to be elected a bishop ?
I shudder, I start at the very thought. For my
sake, for God's sake, for Christ's sake, put an end
to this." This was the origin of the Methodist
Episcopacy. In the matter of the ministry, the
Methodists have the " form, without the power."
Mr. Wesley could not give to another what he
had never received himself. Not being a bishop,
he could not confer Episcopal power on Dr. Coke,
and never intended to confer any such power.
The Episcopal Church cannot, of course, recog-
nize an Episcopacy originating with a Presbyter
of the Church of England as Apostolic, and there-
fore valid.
John Wesley during his long life was a true,
loving, and loyal churchman, but it was impossible
for him to prevent feelings and wishes spreading
which finally ended in the severance of this society
from the Catholic Church.
THE CHURCH.
l 9
Denominational Ministers.
It is well to understand that we have little, if
any, difference with the " denominations " about
their ministry and ordinances. These are valid
for all that it is claimed for them.
They say that their ministers are teachers of
religion, duly appointed and authorized by a vol-
untary society. They are certainly this.
They assert that their ministers are not priests
and have no sacerdotal power or authority. To
this assertion we assent.
They profess not to have Apostolic Succession.
We agree with them upon this point.
They state that they administer an ordinance in
which the body and blood of Christ are not really
present, and are not verily and indeed given,
taken, and received ; but that it is merely a mode
of recalling to their minds our Lord's death. This
statement is quite unobjectionable.
About baptism we differ somewhat from them,
attributing to that sacrament, as administered by
the?n, a greater effect than their own faith ventures
to hope for. Administered with water, in the name
of the Holy Trinity, we believe it to regenerate the
soul that duly receives it, and to graft it into the
body of Christ's Church.
So, we admit their ministry to be all that they
20
THE CHURCH.
claim it to be; and we admit their ordinances to
be in no case less, and in one case more, than
they themselves believe.
Americana.
" The Father of his Country " was a baptized
and communicating member of our American
Church, and the very words of Common Prayer
in which, a hundred years ago, he sought to draw
near to his Heavenly Father, were used in our
churches in the commemorative services of the
thirtieth day of April, a.d. 1889. — The Gospel
Messenger.
Robert B. Livingston, an ardent churchman and
a warden of Trinity Church, organized the oppo-
sition to the Stamp Act in New York in 1764;
and it was the same churchman and patriot, then
Chancellor Livingston, of New York, who on
April 29, 1789, administered to the fir^t President
of the United States the oath of office, and with
the members of Congress and the Father of his
Country attended service at St. Paul's Chapel on
Broadway, joining in the Church's evening prayer,
as read by the patriotic Provoost, chaplain of
Congress.
The first Congress, that assembled in Carpenter's
Hall, Philadelphia, in 1774, was opened by the
THE CHURCH.
21
patriotic rector of Christ Church "in full canoni-
cals," as the Puritan Adams is careful to note,
with the Church's prayers.
The resolution offered in the Continental Con-
gress of 1776, declaring the thirteen colonies free
and independent, was moved by Richard Henry
Lee, of Virginia, a churchman and a vestryman.
Of the fifty-five signers of the Declaration of
Independence thirty-four were churchmen.
The author of the Declaration itself, Thomas
Jefferson, of Virginia, although in later life re-
garded as an infidel, had been baptized and was
a vestryman of the Church in Virginia, and to the
last of his life was a regular attendant at church.
His Prayer-book, used in church in his later years,
is still preserved.
The faith of the great body of the framers of
the Federal Constitution in 1787 was equally that
of our church — two thirds of the convention being
churchmen.
The author of the " Star Spangled Banner,"
Francis Scot Key, was a churchman. Francis
Hopkinson* author of u Hail Columbia, Happy
Land," and one of the signers of the Declaration
of Independence, was also a churchman.
These facts, established by careful investigation,
afford a sufficient answer to the charge of " Tory-
ism " at the time of the Revolutionary War, so
THE CHURCH.
often ignorantly and maliciously urged against the
Church. — Bishop Perty, in "Iowa Churchman"
The Church of England was the first that came
to America. It made the first prayer, baptized
the first convert, married the first couple, buried
the first dead, and administered the first Holy
Communion. This was in Virginia, thirteen years
before the Mayflower came to New England.
The Oldest.
Of the many religious bodies in this country,
the Episcopal Church is the oldest, the first planted
on these shores, as appears from the following
statement prepared by Professor Hitchcock, an
eminent Presbyterian divine : " In the United
States there are more than fifty religious denom-
inations, five of which may be found in all the
States: Episcopalians, dating from 1607 in Vir-
ginia; Roman Catholics, dating from 1633 in
Maryland; Baptists, dating from 1639 in Rhode
Island; Presbyterians, dating from 1684 in Mary-
land ; Methodists, dating from 1 766 in New York."
The First Prayer-book Service.
Bishop Nichols, in his missionary address at the
General Convention, antedated the commonly ac-
cepted year of 1607 as the time when our Liturgy
THE CHURCH.
2 3
was first used in America. He then stated that a
Prayer-book service was first said by the Rev.
Francis Fletcher, Drake's chaplain, in California,
in 1579, and that he had erected a cross on the
spot to mark the event, with this inscription :
ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY,
JUNE 24.TH, A. D. MDLXXIX.
The Book of Common Prayer was first used in the terri-
tory now covered by the United States by Francis
Fletcher, Chaplain to Francis Drake, on
the shore of Drake's Bay, Cal.
What Others Think of Us,
A good showing is made by the so-called Prot-
estant Episcopal Church in the United States.
Over 4000 clergy, 550,000 communicants, and
nearly 2,000,000 baptized persons, over 100,000
confirmed — this is a very fair result in the way of
increase during the year. Besides, there are nearly
500 candidates for Holy Orders, and the records
show an increase of income amounting to $2,000,-
000. The general growth of the Church far ex-
ceeds proportionately that of the population at
large, or of any other religious section of it in par-
ticular. It looks like the " Church of the Future."
— Public Opinio7i f
2 4
THE CHURCH.
The late Rev. Albert Barnes, the distinguished
Presbyterian divine, expressed his opinion of the
Episcopal Church as follows :
" We remember the former services which the
Episcopal Church rendered to the cause of truth
and of the world's redemption ; we remember the
bright and ever-living lights of truth which her
clergy and her illustrious laymen have in other
times enkindled in the darkness of this world's
history, and which continue to pour their pure and
steady luster on the literature, the laws, and the
customs of the Christian w T orld ; and we trust the
day will never come when our bosoms, or the
bosoms of Christians in any denomination, will
cease to beat with emotions of lofty thanksgiving
to the God of grace that He raised up such gifted
and holy men to meet the corruptions of the pa-
pacy, and to breast the wickedness of the world."
The Rev. Thos. K. Beecher, a Congregationalist
minister, has written as follows :
" Because the Episcopal Church is a reformed
church, and not revolutionary ; because her Book
of Prayer is rich and venerable above all in the Eng-
lish tongue ; because her ritual promotes decency,
dignity, prosperity, and permanence ; because her
historic union through the Apostles with Christ
comforts and satisfies so many souls ; because she
THE CHURCH.
25
adopts her infant children and provides for them
education and drill ; and because, with large hos-
pitality, she proffers her sacrament to all true be-
lievers of every name : therefore, from her own
Psalter let us take the words wherewith to bless
her : " They shall prosper that love Thee. Peace
be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy
palaces. For thy brethren and companions' sakes
I wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the house
of the Lord our God, I will seek to do thee good."
To Church People.
O children of the Church! live in the Church,
love her holy ways, walk in her paths of peace,
look not beyond! You have naught to do with
those who are without, but to treat them kindly,
do good to them, and pray for them. In the Holy
Catholic Church you have your portion ; be con-
tent ; give God thanks ; be at rest. Live by the
Bible and the Prayer-book. Begin each day with
prayer ; go forth to your work and to your labor
until the evening ; lie down with the eye of Jesus
looking upon you, and the holy angels watching
around. Do good in your time. Be sober, in-
dustrious, true, honest, kind. Fulfill your course.
Lay hold on all the helps which the Lord puts
within your reach to bring you to heaven. So
shall your walk be close with God ; so shall you
26
THE CHURCH.
at length rest in Him with the blessing of the
Holy Church upon your grave ; so shall you wake
in the last great morning, to rise and go to your
Father's house ; to be brought close to that Lord
of whose body you are a member, and from whose
side you will never be parted ; to inherit the king-
dom prepared for you from the beginning of the
world. — Bishop Huntington.
CHAPTER II.
THE SACRAMENTS.
It is a mark of the Episcopal Church that she
holds and teaches what may be called the sacra-
mental system. The first thing she does to a little
infant is to baptize him, and as soon as he is able
to learn he is taught that he is a " member of
Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the
kingdom of heaven " — that he has been brought
into a " state of salvation," and he is early initiated
into the mysteries of the two sacraments. He is
taught the double nature of a sacrament, and that
it is both human and divine, outward and inward,
with a visible sign and a spiritual grace. He is
taught that as he is admitted into this world of
sense by the mystery of human birth, so is he
taken into this world of spirit, which is the king-
dom of God on earth, by his divine birth in Holy
Baptism, that, as food sustains that " body which
will perish," so does Jesus spiritually present in
His body and blood sustain our whole nature,
27
28
THE SACRAMENTS.
body and soul, unto everlasting life. Now, what-
ever may be said of this teaching, certainly this
end is gained, viz. : The institutions of Christ are
made part of the very system of the Episcopal
Church, and if they were taken away the corner-
stone and the whole foundation would be gone. —
Rev. Thos. C. Pitkin, D.D., in "Gospel Messenger."
The Sacraments Fundamental.
Bishop Coleman, of Delaware, speaking on the
" Limits of Religious Discussion," said :
"And these limits I would set not only as re-
gards the discussion of our Lord's nature and His
character, but also as regards the discussion of His
commandments. Let me illustrate my meaning
here by reference to the two great sacraments of
the Christian religion, Baptism and the Supper of
the Lord. These were unquestionably ordained
by Christ Himself. And they are accounted " as
generally necessary to salvation." Yet how largely
are they ignored by people living in these United
States! And how flippantly, oftentimes, is the
question of their obligation discussed ! The ques-
tion, I submit, is beyond the legitimate limits of a
religious discussion. It is treasonable to the King
of kings, and thus becomes in itself irreligious.
"I am quite prepared to admit that there are
some points in regard to the sacraments which
THE SACRAMENTS.
2 9
may be legitimately discussed, e.g., the mode of
baptism. But as to their necessity, there is no
room for debate. That question has been settled,
and whoever, by argument or by practice, shows
disrespect to such a fundamental principle of the
kingdom puts himself out of court, and is, I repeat
it, guilty of treason. It is not an open question.
" In fact, it has never been anything else but a
closed question, except as those who are rebellious
have dared to debate it."
The Holy Communion.
The Church has always set forth the Holy
Communion as a heavenly means of grace, the
gift of our Incarnate God. As St. Paul says, " The
bread which we break, is it not the communion of
the body of Christ ? The cup of blessing which
we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of
Christ ? " I do not know of one word of Holy
Scripture, or of our Book of Common Prayer, or
of the Liturgies of the Primitive Church, which
teaches Christian men that any benefits come to
them in this holy sacrament, except in its faith-
ful reception. — Bishop Whipple.
Personal Loyalty.
Every now and then it becomes a duty to re-
mind communicants of the Church that they of
30 THE SACRAMENTS.
all persons ought to display a personal loyalty to
their Church by uninterrupted attendance at the
services, and especially at the Holy Communion.
It is amazing how many communicants ignore this
obligation. With some it seems to be more a
matter of personal inclination than duty. When
Sunday comes, when the sacrament is adminis-
tered, it is not a question of choice but one of
solemn fidelity. This staying away from church
for the sake of some home pleasure, or by reason
of the weather, fair or foul, or because one does
not feel like going, is strangely inconsistent. It
not only injures the spiritual life of those who are
thus derelict, but it tends to retard the prosperity
of the parish. It is hard enough to build up a
parish without having those who ought to be co-
workers in the task continually chilling the enthu-
siasm and dampening the ardor of the appointed
pastor. They take for granted that they will not
be missed. They are missed, and the rector has
the right to kindly but firmly beg of them to stop
and consider what their highest duty is in this re-
spect. — Parish Paper.
Worship vs. Preaching.
One day a courtier found King Henry V. at-
tending the celebration of the Holy Eucharist at
an almost deserted side-chapel in Westminster
THE SACRAMENTS.
31
Abbey, while a great crowd, gathered thick to-
gether, filled the nave, and hung upon the lips of
a popular preacher. When an opportunity pre-
sented itself, the courtier inquired of the king why
he was not with the large congregation. On this
the king replied, " I would rather be with my
dearest friend than merely to hear him talked
about." — The Gospel Messenger.
The Holy Communion Every Sunday.
Richard Baxter says : " Ordinarily, in well-dis-
ciplined churches this sacrament should be ad-
ministered every Lord's Day; for we have no
reason to prove that the Apostles' example and
appointment in this case was proper to those times
alone, any more than the praise and thanksgiving
daily is proper to them ; and we may as well deny
the obligation of other institutions or Apostolical
orders as that. Again, it is a part of the settled
order for the Lord's Day's worship, and omitting
it maimeth and altereth the worship of the day,
and occasioneth the omission of thanksgiving and
praise and lively commemorations of Christ which
should be then most performed. . . . Eucharisti-
cal worship is the greatest work of the day, there-
fore the celebration of the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper was always a chief part of its observation
in the primitive churches, not merely for the sac-
32
THE SACRAMENTS.
rament's sake, but because with it was still joined
all the laudatory and thanksgiving worship." —
Christian Directory, pp. 602, 855.
God's Word and all history- show that receiving
the Holy Communion every Lord's Day was the
old way, and receiving once a month entirely a
modern custom. In " often receiving " we are
copying the whole Church of the first three hun-
dred years. — Bishop Paret, of Maryland.
No Lord's Day is complete without the Eucha-
rist. — Bishop Doane,of Alba?iy.
Frequent Celebrations.
The more frequent celebrations of the Holy
Communion attest a deeper appreciation of the
Church's precious doctrine of the real presence of
our dear Lord in the sacrament of His body and
blood. We cannot, with our poor faculties, meas-
ure or rightly value the gift that is vouchsafed to
the soul that devoutly and faithfully communicates.
The highest act of worship on earth, the hour of
special heartfelt devotion to the Incarnate God, is
surely the time for us to make our prayers with a
greatly quickened faith. — Bishop Welles.
THE SACRAMENTS.
33
A Bad Practice.
There is no authority whatever for the rude
exodus, after the prayer for the Church, of those
not minded to receive the Holy Communion, or
who have received at an earlier hour. It is a
breach of good manners, and ought to be de'
nounced by the educated. The Church expects
her children to remain for the blessing, which
comes at the close of the service ; but to disturb
the priest, who is almost forced to stop on account
of the commotion caused by the withdrawal of
many, borders closely on sacrilege. A similar mis-
demeanor in polite society would not be tolerated.
— Church Calendar.
Holy Baptism.
Perhaps the most beautiful of many practical
features of our holy religion is this, that it em-
braces and provides for the salvation of children.
From their earliest days it claims them, takes them
into its loving care, ministers grace to their souls,
and places them in the charge of Christian god-
parents, pastors, and teachers, that they may be re-
tained in the Church of God, and so be brought
up "in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
— Oklahoma Churchman.
34
THE SACRAMENTS.
To Parents : Bringing your children to Holy
Baptism is the greatest kindness you can show
them. The mind of our blessed Lord, the devo-
tion and experience of the ages, the tender solici-
tude of the parent heart guided by faith in Christ
Jesus, and the purpose of the sacrament itself, all
demonstrate that the baptism of children is really
"mercy to babes." Parents, be not unmerciful,
As you love your children, present them in the tem-
ple unto the Lord your God. — Diocese of Arkansas.
Dr. Spalding and Infant Baptism.
The late Dr. H. W. Spalding was in conversation
a strong defender of Church principles. While he
was rector at Madison, he strolled out one day
for a hunt, and calling at a farmhouse late in the
afternoon, he asked for a lunch. While he was
eating the bread and milk which the good lady of
the house had provided for him, he remarked to
her, as she sat holding a little child in her lap,
" Has this child been baptized ? " Suffice it to
say that the doctor had struck the wrong chord,
and discovered at once that he had asked the
question of a very strong Baptist, and, withal, one
gifted with an unusual amount of intelligence.
After going over the usual arguments pro and con
upon the subject of infant baptism with the usual
unsatisfactory results, and in which the good lady
THE SACRAMENTS.
left the little ones to shiver on the outside of the
Christian fold, Dr. Spalding turned upon her in
one of those sudden sallies for which he was always
eminent when roused :
" See here, my dear madam, there is no use of
our going on in this way. Please answer me,
what is every child that is born into the world — a
child of grace or a child of wrath ? "
" Why, a child of wrath, of course. We Baptists
believe that."
"Then," continued the doctor, " what would
become of this infant, that you are holding in your
lap, if it should die to-morrow ? "
" Why, it would go to heaven."
" What ! a child of wrath go to heaven ? "
" Yes ; it goes to heaven by the merits of Christ's
atonement."
" Now, madam, see your strange inconsistency
— Christ's atonement can take your babe into
heaven, but cannot get it into the Baptist Church! "
— The Church Times, Milwaukee.
All the modern Christian communions, Pres-
byterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists, all
except the Anabaptists, hold to the practice of
infant baptism. That is, ninety-nine out of a
hundred Christians believe in infant baptism.
36
THE SACRAMENTS.
Confirmation.
While confirmation is not ordinarily regarded
as a sacrament, yet it comes within the Church's
sacramental system in that it is grace-conferring.
The teaching of the Prayer-book concerning this
rite is clear and explicit both as to its being a
means of grace and concerning those to whom it
is to be administered. To this statement is ap-
pended the estimate of this holy ordinance by
those who have departed from the practice of the
Universal Church.
CONFIRMATION WHAT OTHERS THINK.
Methodist testimony : " I was determined not
to be without it, and therefore went and received
confirmation — even since I became a Methodist
preacher." — Dr. Adam Clarke.
Baptist testimony : " We believe that laying on
of hands, with prayer, upon baptized believers as
such, is an ordinance of Christ, and ought to be
submitted unto by all persons to partake of the
Lord's Supper." — Baptist Association, September
17, 1742.
Congregational testimony : " The confession of
the name of Christ is, after all, very lame, and will
be so till the discipline which Christ ordained be
restored, and the rite of confirmation be recov-
THE SACRAMENTS.
37
ered to its full use and solemnity." — Dr. Coleman,
Boston.
Presbyterian testimony : " The rite of confirma-
tion thus administered to baptized children, when
arrived at competent years, shows clearly that the
Primitive Church, in her purest days, exercised the
authority of a mother over her baptized children."
— Committee of the Ge?ieral Assembly.
This custom is frequently mentioned by the
ancient writers. Such imposition of hands as is
simply connected with the benediction I highly
approve, and wish it were now restored to its
primitive use uncorrupted by superstition. — John
Calvin.
CHAPTER III.
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
A Liturgy is a growth. A real Prayer-book
cannot be extemporized. It is a " development."
Its roots run back into the dimness of the mistiest
past. It is the blossom of the ages. — Parish Paper,
Lineage of our Prayer-book.
The English Prayer-book is the modern de-
scendant of a long train of venerable ancestors,
which carry up its lineage to Apostolic times and
perhaps to the pens of inspired men. There is
good reason to think that Liturgies are as old as
Christianity itself ; and that the example and com-
mandment of our Lord, when He gave to His
Apostles the Lord's Prayer, and the words with
which the sacrament of the Lord's Supper was to
be celebrated, and that of baptism administered,
was followed up by the composition of liturgical
forms, in which the early Church could carry on
its worship on uniform principles, and, to a great
38
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
39
extent, in uniform words. During the time when
Christianity was suffering from fierce persecutions
it was almost impossible to have these forms writ-
ten down for use in books, and even the Scriptures
themselves were taught chiefly by word of mouth.
But as settled times came, the Christian commu-
nities were able to bring their few copies of sacred
books out of their hiding-places, to increase the
number of them, and to use them publicly without
danger of death following upon discovery. From
these earliest settled times the Prayer-books of the
Christians of the Eastern and Western Churches
have been handed down to us, or at least so much
of them as was used in the celebration of the Holy
Eucharist, which was the principal service of the
Church, day by day, in those ages.
Of the Christian Liturgies which have come
down to us, the most ancient are those of St. Mark,
St. James, St. Clement, and St. Chrysostom. No
one who has read these venerable services can
doubt that our own Prayer-book is in some way
derived from them, or from some like them. —
Household Theology.
The People's Book.
The Book of Common Prayer is a rare inherit-
ance for all who will receive it. It is suited to
all sorts and conditions of men at all times. It
4 o
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
contains a summary of the things a Christian ought
to know, believe, and do. Its round of services
presents the facts and doctrines of the divine rev-
elation in due order and proportion, and groups
the incidents and teachings of our Lord's ministry.
Its creeds express the faith of Christendom. Its
canticles lift the soul to loftiest praise. Its
psalter, in portions for daily use, sweeps the whole
range of experience. Its catechism instructs child-
hood in the elements of religion, and its various
offices, fitting the changes of life, carry solace to the
sick, the aged, the troubled, and sanctify the vary-
ing conditions of human existence. It is worthy
to become the religious book of all the people of
America, to be placed beside the Bible, as a wit-
ness to the truth, a treasury of devotion, and an
incentive to right thinking and righteous living.
In one word, the Book of Common Prayer is the
people's book.
Should not every diocese have devoted persons
engaged in placing the Prayer-book in the hands
of people who are strangers to its worth ? — Dr.
Langford.
Should be Distributed.
A distinguished non-Episcopal divine has ex-
pressed his wonder that the Episcopal Church
should be so blind to its advantage in possessing
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
41
such a tract as the Book of Common Prayer.
" Every one," he said, " who reads it must admire
and love it, and venerate the Church which has
produced it. Its Christian breadth, its deep spir-
ituality, its adaptation to the uses of all who pro-
fess and call themselves Christians, its unsectarian
character, excluding as it does all forms of secta-
rian controversy — these make the Book of Com-
mon Prayer an ideal agent for winning the regard
of Christian people for the Church to which it be-
longs." This gentleman went still further, saying
that he would consider it a great gain to the spir-
itual life of all denominations if the Episcopal
Church were to send a copy of the Prayer-book
to every minister of every religious body in the
land. As a contribution to the cause of Christian
unity (which must begin in unity of spirit, if there
is ever to be a bond of peace) we can think of
nothing likely to be more effectual than the dis-
tribution of the Book of Common Prayer among
Christians of every name.
A churchwoman in this diocese, living where
we have neither church nor established congre-
gation, recently distributed twenty copies of the
Prayer-book among her neighbors. As the result,
seven candidates for confirmation are awaiting
Bishop Jackson's visitation.
42
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
One candidate for every three Prayer-books —
what more effective missionary can be sent out ?
— Diocese of Alabama.
Excellence of the Prayer-book.
Of the excellence of the English Prayer-book,
of which our own is almost an exact copy, Dr.
Adam Clarke, the distinguished Methodist, thus
speaks : " It is the greatest effort of the Reforma-
tion, next to the translation of the Scriptures into
the English language. ... As a form of devotion
it has no equal in any part of the Universal Church
of God. . . . Next to the Bible, it is the book of
my understanding, and of my heart."
The Liturgy of the Episcopal Church has be-
come very precious to me. The depth of its mean-
ing, it seems to me, nobody can fathom who has
not experienced some great sorrow. We have
lost much in parting with the prayers of the old
Mother- Church ; and what have we gained in their
place ? I do not feel in extemporaneous prayer
the deep undertone of devotion which rings out
from the old collects of the church like the sound
of ancient bells. I longed for, and prayed for,
and, worst of all, waited for some sublime and
revolutionary change of heart ; and when that was,
as a fact on a child's experience, I have not the
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
43
remotest idea. If I had been trained in the Epis-
copal Church, I should at the time have been con-
firmed, and entered upon a consciously religious
life, and grown up into Christian living of the
Episcopal type. — From the Memoirs of Professor
Austin Phelps (Co?igregationalist).
The Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, a Congrega-
tional minister of Elmira, N. Y., some years ago in
preaching to his congregation on the Episcopal
Church said of the Prayer-book :
" In English there are no lessons, gospels, psalms,
collects, confessions, thanksgivings, prayers — in
one word, no religious form book — that can stand
a moment in comparison with the Prayer-book of
the Episcopal Church in the twofold quality of
richness and age. You rarely hear in any church
a prayer spoken in English that is not indebted to
the Prayer-book for some of its choicest periods.
Every one has at some time been shocked or bored
by public devotional performances. Nothing of
this sort ever occurs in the Episcopal Church.
All things are done decently and in order. To be
a devout and consistent churchman brings a man
through aisles fragrant with holy association, and
accompanied by a long procession of the good,
chanting as they march an orison of piety and
hope, until they come to the holy place where
44
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
shining saints sing the new song of the redeemed,
and they sing with them."
The Church's System.
There is a system of Church-observance, open-
ness of sanctuaries, kneeling down in them, weekly
and Holy- Day Communion, which is plain on the
pages of our Liturgic Manual, in our law, our ru-
brics, and our history. It is there; it belongs
there ; it will stay there. It will be honored there
in the years to come more than in the years gone
by. Our wisdom is to mind, in " all humility and
readiness of heart," to the utmost, every provision
and requirement, every command and ordinance
and thanksgiving of this Heavenly Homestead, our
" House Beautiful " and Tower of Defense. For
every member of the Family, down to the least, up
to the greatest, the Father knows what is best.
Fidelity to the Church system, then, is fidelity to
Him. — Bishop Hunti?igton, in Convention Ad-
dress. 1884.
The Collects.
Any one of us may lose hearing or sight, wholly
or partially, and arrive at days when it is a com-
fort unspeakable to remember delightful and help-
ful stories, verses which we have loved, and chap-
ters from the treasure-house of the Sacred Word.
The collects of the Episcopal Church, familiar by
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
45
incessant repetition through many years, have been
as cheerful music in the invalid's room, when age
or illness have prevented attendance on divine
service. — Harper's Bazaar.
The Psalter.
The psalms in the Prayer-book are taken from
" the Great English Bible," or Cranmer's Bible, set
forth and used in the time of King Henry VIII.
and King Edward VI., and consequently differ
materially from the translation of the "Authorized
Version made in the reign of King James I.,
a.d. 1611. The old version of the Reformation
period was retained because the choirs were ac-
customed to its use and its language was deemed
more rhythmical and smooth, and adapted for
song ; and because at the time of the last Eng-
lish revision of the Prayer-book, in a.d. 1662, the
Church people generally were so familiarized with
the psalter version as to be able to sing it from
memory without the use of the book. — Milwaukee
Church Times.
Join in the Services.
Enjoyment of the services is immeasurably in-
creased when one joins heart and soul and voice
in the worship. It is the heritage of Church
people that they can be something more than
4 6
THE PRAYER-BOOK.
"hearers of the Word." The title of the Prayer-
book is " Common Prayer." A part of the mean-
ing of this title is, that our book belongs to the
people as well as to the priest. It is used in com-
mon by minister and congregation. Let us put it
to its fullest use in public services. Let all join
audibly in the responses and in saying the Creed,
the Confession, the Lord's Prayer, etc. Then our
worship will be in some degree like that described
in the Book of Revelation : "like the voice of many-
waters" — Cathedral Chimes , Omaha.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR. ,
The Anglican and American churches have^
among other great features of the historic Church,
that of the Christian year. Many of our own
people are not aware how valuable an inheritance
this is to them. In the first place, it presents truths
by system and order rather than by confusion and
caprice. Truth has various aspects, many phases,
and no man, though he be endowed with the theo-
logical acumen and the profound learning of Aqui-
nas, can perceive all of the aspects of truth at the
same time. The Christian year, with the eight
seasons, presents the truth in a revolving cycle,
in which these various phases are presented to the
devout churchman in due and orderly succession.
There is a wide difference between the teachings
of Advent and those of Christmas-tide, yet both
are necessary to a complete view of Christian
truth. The phases of truth as presented to ear-
nest contemplation during Lent are not the same
47
4 8
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.
as those to be dwelt upon in the joyous season of
Easter-tide, yet both are essential to any compre-
hensive understanding of Christianity. And thus,
in studying the wondrous life of our Lord, and the
truth taught by Him and His Apostles in Gospel
and Epistle, and in the collects and ordered service
of the Church He founded, we get such complete-
ness of view, such depth of insight, as only the
Christian year can give. All this is the result of
the Church being an organic institution and not
simply an association of men, women, and children
for religious purposes. Churchmen who under-
stand the Church and have the Church idea be-
lieve profoundly in this institutional Christianity
as opposed to sporadic and congregational Chris-
tianity. They see that it makes order in confu-
sion, cosmos amid chaos. The Christian year is
not only a marked feature of historic and institu-
tional Christianity, but it is a strong teacher of
this. It is not only a note of an organic, visible
Church, but a powerful promulgator of the bame.
Yet while other religious bodies are growing
strongly toward the ecclesiastical year and the
liturgy of our Church, we here and there find a
churchman who does not value it because he has
never taken the time to study it or understand it.
His Church has an immensely good thing and he
does not know it, and therefore does not care for
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.
49
it. The Church is so distinct and certain in her
teachings of an ordered polity that it seems singular
that any one who has any conception of her meth-
ods should fail to assist in carrying them out. — The
Church Times, Milwaukee.
The Christian Year in Verse.
At a recent catechizing of a mission Sunday-
school by the bishop, the following ingenious lines
were recited by the children in unison. Teachers
may be glad to use them.
Advent tells us Christ is near,
Christmas tells us Christ is here;
In Epiphany we trace
All the glory of His grace.
Those three Sundays before Lent
Will prepare us to repent,
That in Lent we may begin
Earnestly to mourn for sin.
Holy Week and Easter then
Tell who died and rose again
O that happy Easter day
Christ is risen again we say.
Yes, and Christ ascended too
To prepare a place for you.
So we give Him special praise
After those great forty days.
Then He sent the Holy Ghost
On the day of Pentecost,
With us ever to abide,
Well may we keep Whitsuntide.
5°
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.
Last of all we humbly sing
Glory to our God and King,
Glory to the One in Three
On the Feast of Trinity. — Amen.
— Gospel Messenger,
A Letter to a Friend.
" I want you always to remember that it is quite
as binding upon you, wherever you may be, to
keep Ascension-day as to keep Christmas or Easter,
Your Prayer-book appoints the same service for
both days, and it would not be necessary for me
to tell you this but for the neglect into which
the festival has fallen. We shall none of us ever
realize the great facts of our Lord's life and the
doctrines flowing from them, unless we obey the
Church's rule and observe her fasts and feasts.
Those who live and die outside her blessed fold
may talk of the Church's calendar as a formal list
of days and dates, but let us, who know better
from happy experience, always count it a privilege
beyond words to follow ' the blessed steps of His
most holy life,' and from His humiliation, in taking
our flesh, at Christmas, on to the day of His ascen-
sion triumph, never fail to honor Him with most
loving devotion."
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.
5*
Friday.
It is encouraging to note a growing tendency
to honor the day of our Lord's crucifixion with a
service, and where there is but one week-day ser-
vice, to appoint it, if practicable, for that day.
The propriety of this cannot be questioned. The
Prayer-book is specific as to the religious observ-
ance of Friday. To omit this oft-recurring link
from the chain of the Church's year is like keep-
ing Easter after ignoring the commemoration of
the Passion. But now and then there is disap-
pointing evidence of the fact that Church people
feel less strongly upon this subject than do the
members of other religious bodies. For instance,
in one of our cities recently a series of public enter-
tainments was given for the benefit of a benevolent
object, and the evenings of the week were assigned
to representatives of the various ecclesiastical or-
ganizations. When it came to making provision
for Friday it was found that Methodists, Baptists,
Presbyterians, etc., would not touch it because it
was their prayer-meeting night. The entertain-
ment for Friday evening, therefore, was assigned
to Episcopalians and Unitarians conjointly. That
Church people could be found who would enter
into such an arrangement is not greatly to their
credit. — Correspondent of the "Standard."
5*
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.
The Christian Year Desired by Others.
The Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, in a paper he read
before the last Pan-Presbyterian Conference, thus
speaks of the value of the Christian year and pleads
for its restoration :
" I anticipate a revival of the old Christian year.
Clear back, close up to the Apostolic times, we
find at least Passover, Pentecost, and Epiphany.
Christmas appears not long after. And then the
calendar was crowded with festivals which dis-
gusted our Protestant fathers, bringing the whole
system into disrepute. As between Puritans and
Papists we side, of course, with the Puritan, but
the older way is better than either. Judaism had
more than its weekly Sabbath, and Protestant
Christendom needs more and is steadily taking
more. Christmas is leading this new procession.
Good Friday, Easter, and Whitsuntide are not
far behind. These, at least, can do us no harm.
They emphasize the three grand facts and features
of our religion : Incarnation, Atonement, and Regen-
eration."
The well-nigh universal restoration of Christmas
as a popular holiday, and its increasing observance
as a religious festival by the various Protestant
denominations, are pleasant things to see. It has
THE CHRISTIAN YEAR.
53
all come about within the memory of men still
young, who can well remember when the Church's
steadfast observance of days and months and times
and years was denounced on all sides as a turning
again to weak and beggarly elements. And it has
come to stay. The people win* not - suffer them-
selves to be again defrauded of their Christmas
and Easter, and will gradually recover to them-
selves the whole orderly sequence of the Christian
year. — The Churchman.
CHAPTER V.
THE PARISH— ITS LIFE AND WORK.
A Strong Church.
" Is it a strong congregation ? " asked a man
respecting a body of worshipers.
" Yes," was the reply.
"How many members are there ? "
" Seventy-six."
" Seventy-six ! Are they so very wealthy ? "
" No ; they are poor."
" How, then, do you say it is a strong church? ,r
" Because," said the gentleman, " they are ear-
nest, devoted, at peace, loving one another and
striving together to do the Master's work. Such a
congregation is strong, whether composed of five
or five hundred." — Church Record.
A Model Parish.
The ideal model parish is something like this :
One whose members feel and act on the need of
54
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 55
personal religion, and are willing and desirous to
perform personal service in the little details of
duty and work, as well as in those that are more
conspicuous; where family prayer and Christian
nurture at home feed the parish life ; where every
service is attended regularly, not only by adults,
but by children ; where every act and attitude of
worship is faithfully observed ; where all kneel to
pray, and rise to praise with a promptness and
precision that become contagious in the heartiness
of outspoken utterance ; where the voice of song
from every part of the house blends in simple and
rich melody ; where reverence and earnest fervor
characterize every part from beginning to close ;
where the sick are visited, the poor are assisted,
and strangers are welcomed ; where every man,
woman, and child is a weekly giver according to
ability, holding themselves and all that they pos-
sess as belonging to God ; where they are desirous
to receive instruction and are satisfied with, and
grateful for, such as their means will command,
whether it be through clerical or lay service ; where
they feel a common interest in all that pertains to
the Church in every part of the world, and by
that interest and sympathy are bound together in
a blessed brotherhood. — The Living Church,
56 THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK.
How NOT to Help Your Minister.
Absent yourself from morning service.
Stay at home whenever it rains on Sunday, or
it is too hot or too cold.
Never let the preacher know if he has ever done
you any good.
Take a class in the Sunday-school; never be
punctual, and frequently be absent.
Attend no church gatherings if you have the
opportunity of going anywhere else.
If times are hard, at once diminish or withdraw
your subsc ''prions, for fear lest, when you have
paid for your jewelry, etc., you may have nothing
left for your holiday.
Always grumble at the sermon, and fear that
you cannot stand the draughts much longer.
"It takes time," writes a North Carolina clergy-
man, " to make a Churchman. An Episcopalian
is quite a different matter, and easily made. I
find that eight men out of ten think they have
done enough when they give a few dollars a year
and go to church once a Sunday." — St. Andrew's
Cross.
Hypocrites.
Did you ever notice that the man who says he
is kept out of church by hypocrites is not influ-
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 57
enced by them anywhere else ? Business is full
of them, but if he sees a chance to make money
he doesn't stop for that. The theater is full of
them, and yet he will go and pay to look at
them.
Society is crowded with them, and yet he never
thinks of becoming a hermit. Married life is full
of them, but that does not make him remain a
bachelor. Hell is full of them, and yet he is not
doing a thing to keep away from there. He wants
to have you think he is trying to avoid the soci-
ety of hypocrites, and yet he takes no single step
toward the only place in God's universe where no
hypocrite can go, and by his conduct proves that
he himself is the biggest kind of a hypocrite. —
Rev. E. R. Baxter, quoted in the Diocese of Spring-
field,
Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely
pictured windows. Standing without, you see no
glory, nor can possibly imagine any ; standing
within, every ray of light reveals a harmony of
unspeakable splendors. — Nathaniel Hawthorne.
" To Every Man His Work."
Every member of the parish ought to be doing
some work in or for the parish. Join one of the
societies — the Auxiliary, the Parish Aid, the King's
58 THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK.
Daughters, the Altar Guild, the Brotherhood of
St. Andrew. Sing in the choir, teach in the
Sunday-school, work in the Industrial School.
Give money for missions and for the parish char-
ities. Be doers of the work, not simply hearers
of the Word, " for as the body without the spirit
is dead, even so faith without work is dead also."
— Cathedral Chimes, Omaha.
Luther said : "Bene orare est bene laborare " —
to pray well is to work well. The converse is
also true : to work well in a good cause is to pray
in the best fashion. But the best of all is to unite
hard work with earnest prayer. — Chtirch Standard.
A good Christian cannot be other than eager
for the extension of our Lord's kingdom among
men, not only from his sense of what is due to the
Lord who bought him, but also from his natural
sense of justice, his persuasion that he has no right
to withhold from others those privileges and pros-
pects which are the joy of his own inmost life.
There is no life so humble that if it be true and
genuinely human and obedient to God it may not
hope to shed some of His light. There is no life
so meager that the greatest and wisest of us can
afford to despise it. We cannot know at what
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 59
moment it may flash forth with the life of God. —
Phillips Bi'ooks.
" You wear yourself out by holding so many
services," says the layman to the priest. Might
not the priest justly reply, " You wear me out by
thwarting my earnest efforts to maintain the ser-
vices in their integrity"? It is not the work that
crushes, so much as the pressure of unaided, un-
appreciated labor and self-sacrifice. — The Gospel
Messenger.
A gentleman of national reputation, in New
York City, whose public and private duties are
such that most men would grant him, without his
asking, relief from church work, called the other
day on the pastor of one of the most active work-
ing churches in the city. " I cannot afford," he
said, " to give my whole energy to my professional
employments, I must have some church work to
do ; and I have come to your church because it is
a working church, and to you because I want a
share in your work." If all churches were like
that one and all Christians in name like this man,
they would soon change the world to righteousness.
Church of the Heavenly Rest.
The truth in some stories is demonstrated by the
ease with which they fit themselves to many and
6o THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK.
varied localities. Doubtless many of our clergy can
find the " double " to the following incident : After
a mission held in a parish in some Eastern city, a
woman came to the rector and said that she had
been greatly stirred up and revived by the mission,,
and that she wanted to go to work in his parish.
The rector proposed first one branch and then
another of parish work, but without effect. One
was too hard, another too inconvenient, another
not pleasant, to another she was not suited, until
by this time, understanding the real character of
the woman, the rector said : " My dear madam,
you have made a mistake. This is not the church
you want. What you are looking for is the church
of the Heavenly Rest."
All Christians must work. What would happen
if only the officers fought ? — F. W. Robertso?i.
Family Prayers.
The following is from a recent pastoral of Bishop
Coxe :
" A neglect of family prayers is the underlying-
source of innumerable evils in many households.
Where a blessing is never invoked upon a family
by all its members kneeling before God, what won-
der if blessings are withheld ? When we reflect
that a reverent use even of the Lord's Prayer only
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 6 I
would preserve a family from the curse w T hich rests
on a prayerless household, surely there can be no
excuse for neglecting because of the proverbial
pressure and hurry of the world's affairs.
"The neglect of private reading of the Scriptures
is rather to be censured, because the Prayer-book
divides a daily portion for every Christian, out of
which something should be selected in the busiest
life for the daily food of the immortal spirit."
Education of Children.
What is wanted most in these days is dogmatic,
orthodox, catholic teaching. There is better work
to do than merely to cram children with geograph-
ical, topographical, and historical statistics, divert
them with stories, and bore them with moral plat-
itudes and general statements which nobody de-
nies. What can it avail to drill our boys and girls
on the mountains and rivers, the beasts and fishes,
the birds and bugs of the Bible, to entertain them
with pictorial lessons about Joseph and his breth-
ren, David and Goliath, witches, prophets, wise
men, and bad and good folk, while omitting the
" weightier matters " of the Creed, the holy mys-
teries, the things to be believed to the saving of
the soul ? It is waste of time to tell the history
of the earthly life of Christ, while hiding or obscur-
ing the truth that He is Very God of Very God,
62 THE PARISH — ITS LIFE AND WORK.
the atoning High-priest, the Royal Law-giver, the
Awful Judge ; or to follow the Apostles in their
journeys and voyages, yet ignore the catholic and
apostolic religion which they built up. And what-
ever others may think, it is my conviction that, in
this free-and-easy age, we need something better
than that sort of teaching which offends no one,
and those manuals which owe their circulation to
the fact that everything has been weeded out w T hich
might have diminished the sale. Let us teach,
first, the catholic faith, whole and undefiled, the
sacramental system, the precepts of the Church,
the perfect law of God. This is what our mother
intends, in her standing order to sponsors, " Chiefly
ye shall provide that this child learn the Creed.''
— Rev. Morgan Dix, D.D.
The Bishop of New York has a word of exhor-
tation for parents, too. He says : " Your child
must learn French and German and drawing ; but
he may learn his catechism and his Bible lesson
and a reverent observance of the Lord's day if he
chooses, and not otherwise. A more dismal and
irrational folly is not easy to conceive of. I plead
with you who are parents to train your children
to ways of reverent familiarity with God's Word,
God's house, and God's day. And that they may
do this the more effectually, give them that mighti-
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 63
est teaching which consists in your own consistent
and devout example."
About Reading.
Let us not be familiar with the heroes of the
world and utterly ignorant of the heroes of the
Cross. Many a Christian woman could give the
plot of Tolstoi's last novel, or the history of the
women of the French saloons, who could not tell
you one word of the story of David Livingstone,
or of Hannington or Pattison. The kingdom of
Christ endures. Let us study the history of the
kingdom, work for the kingdom. Life is too short
for us to read everything ; let us read the best.
Church-going.
Public worship is a duty which all owe unto
God. It is not a matter of choice. You cannot
neglect it without loss and danger to yourself.
Especially on each Lord's day no one should be
absent without most urgent reasons. If every
person in the parish would make a point to be
present at each service, we should have a crowded
church each time, and thus a more worthy tribute
of praise be offered, and the influence of the church
of Christ be greatly increased. Shall not such be
the case ? Remember that the responsibility rests
with you.
64 THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK.
Should Tired People go to Church?
Many of those who stay at home all day Sun-
day because they are tired make a great mistake.
They are much more weary on Sunday night than
they would have been had they gone to church
at least once, as the time must often drag heavily
on Sunday for the lack of something to do and
to think about, and the consciousness of having
spent the day unprofitably must sometimes add
mental dissatisfaction to languor that follows
idleness.
Moreover, these tired people would often find
refreshment for their minds and hearts in the quiet
services of the church. They would secure by
means of them a change of mental atmosphere,
and the suggestion of thoughts and motives and
sentiments which are out of the range of their
routine work. For a hard-working mechanic or
salesman, or housekeeper, or teacher, the diversion
of the thought to other than the customary themes
might be the most restful way of spending a por-
tion of the day of rest. We happen to know of
several cases in which this prescription has been
used with excellent results. Those who wanted
to stay at home because they were too tired on
Sunday to go to church have been induced to try
the experiment of seeking rest for their souls, as
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 65
well as their bodies, in the church on Sunday, and
they testify that they have found what they sought ;
that the observance has proved a refreshment
rather than a weariness, and that their Sundays
never gave them so much good rest when they
stayed at home as they have given them since
they formed the habit of church-going. — Good
Company.
Some Conundrums.
Why is it that good churchmen find it so easy
to give from three to five hours to an entertain-
ment or social gathering for their personal gratifi-
cation, and are in such a hurry when asked to
attend meetings of the vestry or committees, oc-
casionally to transact the important work of the
Lord ?
Why does ten dollars seem so large when asked
for church purposes, and so small when it is to
be expended on personal indulgence ?
Why is time so scarce when the church-bell calls
to worship, but so plenty when the world calls for
pleasure ?
Why are Sundays and other church days colder
and hotter and wetter than other days?
Why do people who seldom or never respond
to special calls for money find most fault because
the calls are made?
66 THE PARISH — -ITS LIFE AND WORK.
Why is Sunday sickness the sickest sickness?
Why are excuses that will keep people from
church not thought sufficient for " regrets" when
social requisitions are made?
Why is not the salvation of the soul made the first
consideration at all times ? — Northeast, Maine.
American factories turn out a cart-load of
watches every day, and yet people come in late
to church just as of yore. — New York Herald.
Sunday Excuses.
For many years we have read arguments to
show the wrong men do who neglect the worship
of God and leave their pews in church empty.
We are glad the period of argument has given
place to sarcasm, for it is a negligence beneath
the dignity of reason, while it is exactly suited to
ridicule. We all know the excuses are mere shams,
devoid of sincerity. An illustration of the new
method : A man looks out upon the rain and says
to his wife, who is preparing to go to the opera :
" My dear, I don't think we can go out in this
storm," and receives the reply : " Why, you forget,
do you not? We are not getting ready for church.''
Such instances are much more in keeping with
the subject — much more convincing also than ar-
gument.
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 67
The Business Man's Lesson.
He was an upright business man. In his heart
he believed the religion of Christ to be true. But
he was very busy, and when Sunday came he was
thoroughly tired. He had become interested, too,
in his Sunday paper, so he gradually dropped off
going to church. His wife went regularly, and
sometimes the children. One morning, just after
his wife had set out, he was comfortably seated
reading the money article, when he heard his boys
talking in the next room. Said eight-y ear-old
Willie : " When you grow up shall you go to
church as mother does, or stay at home like
father ? " " I shall do neither," said the other,
decidedly. " When I'm a man, I shall have my
horses, and be on the road Sundays, and enjoy
myself." The newspaper suddenly lost its attrac-
tion. Between the father and it there came a pic-
ture of his boys associating with loose men, and
drifting into a godless, reckless life, and of himself
looking on it in his old age as the fruit of his self-
indulgence. Five minutes after he was rapidly
walking toward the church. When the service
was over, his wife, coming down the aisle, saw
him waiting at the door. There was questioning,
glad surprise in her eyes, but he only remarked
that he had taken a walk, and he thought he would
68 THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK.
join her on her way home. Next Sunday, how-
ever, the whole family were in their pew, and all
the rest of the day there was a kind of peace
about the house that reminded him of his boyhood
days in his father's home. And who will say that
he was the less fitted for another week of business
life by this share in the services of God's house
instead of " staying at home all day Sunday to
rest " ? — Sunday-school Times.
4 'We had Company. "
An oft urged reason for absence from church.
We may think it a very forcible one until we study
it carefully ; but it fails upon a careful investiga-
tion. There are some people that are always in
their place in church. They have hosts of friends,
but they never are kept home because they have
company. It must be that their friends know
that they are regular attendants at church, and
another time is selected. And having established
their reputation as Christians, their Christian habits
are not disturbed. We know no better advice to
those who would like to attend church regularly
than to urge them to establish a reputation. If a
friend calls, state your intention to go to church,
and invite him to go with you. If he declines,
follow the rule which we know was adopted in
one family : " If callers will not accompany us,
THE PARISH ITS LIFE AND WORK. 69
let them stay till we come back." There is no
discourtesy whatever. Church attendance is a
matter of principle, and they soon learn that you
prize your relations to God more highly than any
social, friendly relation that ever existed. Estab-
lish a Christian reputation, and you will never
have occasion to offer the excuse, " I did want to
come so much, but company arrived just as I was
about to get ready." — Christian News.
Words of Counsel.
Be loyal to your Church. Honor her appoint-
ments. Love her heavenly ways.
Be loyal to your rector. Cooperate with him
fully as he endeavors to carry out the Prayer-book
system. If he appoints a week-day service, show
him by your presence that you appreciate his
efforts on your behalf. If he plans to celebrate
the Holy Communion on Sundays and holy days
as the Prayer-book prescribes, honor him for his
fidelity, and show, by being present, that you ap-
preciate his faithfulness. Whatsoever he does in
thus following the Prayer-book you may be sure
he has you in mind and desires that you shall
have full opportunity to receive the Church's
blessings.
Above all, be not selfish in the enjoyment of your
privileges. Aim to make known your Church and
70 THE PARISH — ITS LIFE AND WORK.
her ways among your friends. Tell them of her
admirable methods, her sweet Communions, her
helpful worship. Invite them to accompany you
to church, not only on Sundays, but also on holy
days and week-days. Explain what to them is
unknown. Encourage them to read Church liter-
ature, and make them to understand that there is
a great deal more in the Church than they com-
monly supposed. In the end they will thank you
and enter into your joy. — Diocese of Arkansas.
CHAPTER VI.
CHRISTIAN GIVING.
Very few people do what they can in the
matter of giving money to God and His Church.
" Except your righteousness exceed the righteous-
ness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no
case enter the kingdom of heaven." The scribes
and Pharisees gave one tenth of their income.
Too many Christians, whose income is from ten
to twenty dollars a week, give only ten or twenty-
five cents a week to God. The Lord's Prayer
was meant for those who were consecra'ed to
God. " Give us this day our daily bread " sounds
strangely on the lips of him who has enough money
laid up for many years' daily bread. Giving to
God is no loss. It never has been a loss ; what
one keeps he loses, what he gives away he has.
Liberal giving develops faith in God's Providence.
Covetousness is idolatry and starves the soul." —
TJie Platte Missionary .
7i
I 2
CHRISTIAN GIVING.
Paying Nothing.
As a rule, those who pay nothing toward church
work have no interest in it. We do not mean
that they pay nothing because they care nothing.
The converse is true also. They care nothing be-
cause they pay nothing. One way to get people
interested in the congregation's affairs is to get
them to contribute. It secures their interest.
What costs them something concerns them, if it
were only because it cost them something. The
same is true also of institutions, missions, etc.
Those who contribute nothing are not likely to in-
quire about them and read about them and talk
about them. The consciousness that these are
our institutions, and that the work done is our
work, is awakened adequately only when they have
cost us something. And when we recognize them
as ours, and learn to rejoice in the prosperity of
our work, we give more freely and more liberally
and more cheerfully. — Gospel Messenger.
The Offertory
is an important part of worship. It is not an
impertinence, but stands in the line of duties,
alongside of prayer and singing. To give money
each time you go to church and in the appointed
way, will bring blessings from God. You ought
CHRISTIAN GIVING.
73
to teach your children to give regularly. Pew
rent is not " giving " in this sense, any more than
paying the butter bill or for a seat at the opera-
house. We refer to the offering to God for relig-
ious or charitable purposes, regularly through the
offertory in church. So your alms shall go up
with your prayers as a memorial before God. —
Cathedral Chimes, Omaha.
Parish Support.
Every communicant ought to help support the
parish. There are necessary expenses, and the
money for these expenses must be raised and paid
by some one. It is not fair that a few should
virtually pay all the bills. And it is not good for
any one to have any one else pay his expenses
unless it is absolutely necessary. Therefore let the
people of the parish, according to ability, contrib-
ute toward its support. — Cathedral Chimes.
Wanted — A Higher Devotion.
When I witness how much is spent in the
social world upon dress and jewels, and furniture
and bric-a-brac, upon entertainments and equi-
pages, upon art and music — because women are
intensely interested in these things — I cannot help
thinking that if a like intensity of interest could
be excited in the work of enlarging Christ's king-
74
CHRISTIAN GIVING.
dom and of saving souls, if Christian women could
learn to estimate the value of a soul and to prize
an introduction to the Court of the Heavenly
King, if they had a faith that possessed them, if
they had a strong affection for a personal Saviour
aroused in their hearts, I cannot help thinking
what a mint of money would be at the disposal of
the board. We want a different tone of Christian
society, and whatever change takes place in that
tone must depend on the women of society. We
want a higher devotion among the women of the
Church who are nominal Christians, and, if it is
to come, it is my conviction that it must come
through the prayers and efforts and example and
influence of the godly women of the Church, who
are full of the Spirit of Christ. — Dr. Vibbert.
The wealth of church-members in the United
States, as given in the census of 1880, was nine
billions of dollars. Their contributions annually
for missions was an average of one-sixteenth of a
cent for every dollar, or one dollar in every 1586.
— Christian at Work.
A gentleman who is being greatly prospered
said lately : "I used to give as I felt inclined ; now
I intend to give of that which God blesses. I
have bank stocks, railroad stocks, United States
CHRISTIAN GIVING.
75
bonds, etc. These draw interest seven days in
the week. But the first day of the week is the
Lord's day, and all that pertains to it belongs to
Him. So one-seventh of my income from invest-
ments is saved to the Lord. Then I manage to
secure an income during the six days of the week,
and from this also I will give to religious pur-
poses." — The Parish Times.
A boy, hearing his father pray for the mission-
ary cause, especially for the wants of the mission-
aries, and that their institutions might be supplied
with abundant means, said to him, " Father, I wish
I had your money."
" Why, my son, what would you do with it ? "
asked the father.
The boy replied, " I would answer your prayers."
— The Gospel Messenger.
Making Your Will.
In the visitation office for the sick in the Prayer-
book occurs a rubric which the Church has placed
there for the guidance of the priests and laity,
that seems often forgotten. We recall it here as
a matter of great importance. ''And if the sick
person hath not disposed of his goods, let him then
be admonished to make his will. The minister shall
not omit earnestly to move such sick persons as are
76
CHRISTIAN GIVING.
of ability to be liberal to the poor" Every Christian
man and woman should recognize his stewardship
in the disposition of his worldly goods, and should
remember the work of Christ's kingdom. — Church
Worker, Indiana.
Giving.
Oh that men would accept the testimony of
Christ touching the blessedness of giving! He
who sacrifices most loves most ; and he who loves
most is most blessed. Love and sacrifice are re-
lated to each other like seed and fruit ; each pro-
duces the other. The seed of sacrifice brings forth
the fragrant fruit of love, and love always has in
its heart the seeds of new sacrifice.
We need to apprehend the beauty of giving.
It is the highest of the fine arts. We ought to be
enamored of it as of the most aesthetic production
.of the artist, the sculptor, the architect, the musi-
cian. Then giving will not need to be urged;
there will be rather need of restraining the people
from bringing, as Moses did. The man or woman
who learns to give in the right spirit forgets all
about the duty in the privilege, and the absence
of life's necessities would bring no such distress
as to be cut off from this luxury. — Tri?iity Parish
Paper, Williamsport, Pa.
BOOKLETS ON THE CHURCH.
Why am I a Churchman ? By Thomas Underwood Dudley,
D.D., Bishop of Kentucky. Reprinted from the North Amer-
ican Review. Paper covers, 15 cents.
"The distribution of tractates like this will do much toward re-
moving- prejudices and in setting- forth in clear light the claims and
position of the historic Church. Bishop Dudley has the art of put
ling things, and compresses the n -cessary truths into small space,
systematically arranged and easy to understand." — The Church
News.
"The Episcopal Church." Its Doctrine, its Ministry, its Disci-
pline, its Worship and its Sacraments. By Rev. George
Hodges, D.D., Dean of the Episcopal Theological School,
Cambridge, Mass. i2mo, paper 25 cents ; cloth, 50 cents.
" Excellent examples of what the broad-minded, thoughtful, and
earnest clergy of the Episcopal Church are saying to the world just
now. The humane element is large, the dogmatic not prominent."
— The Christian Union.
A Manual of Information Concerning the Episcopal Church.
By Rev. George W. Shinn, D.D. i8mo, board covers, 25
cents ; cloth, 50 cents.
"The Church, in its lineage, sacred order, doctrine, discipline,
and worship, is here most becomingly set forth to the understanding
and advantage of those whose interest has been awakened by oc-
casional attendance at its services, those who have been formerly
opponents of the Church, and those who want to become intel-
ligent Church-folk."— The Living Church.
The Prayer=Book Reason Why. A Book of Questions and An-
swers on the Doctrines, Usages, and History of the Church as
suggested by the Liturgy. For Parochial and Sunday-School
uses. By Rev. Nelson R. Boss, M.A. i6mo, paper covers,
20 cents ; boards, 30 cents ; cloth 50 cents, net.
Thirteen editions have already been sold of this little book. The
design of the work is threefold : (i) To furnish concise and ready
answers to the popular objections so commonly raised against the
Church and her services by those not familiar with her ways : (2)
To bring out clearly and^concisely some of the principles of historic
Christianity which distinguish the Episcopal Church from all other
religious bodies ; and (3) To convey, in the briefest space, informa-
tion on the history, doctrines, and usages of the Church, which
every layman, and especially every teacher, ought to have.
THOMAS WHITTAKER, Publisher,
2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE, NEW YORK.